They gathered on deck five in silence.

  Kaden walked with Theta-3 in a loose line, boots thudding softly on the deck. The corridor here was cleaner than most, less of the usual scuffs and cargo rash, more of that polished, intentional look Command liked for places they expected to show people.

  His left hand ached in a distant, fuzzy way. The med techs had wrapped the base of the cyber fingers in thin, breathable mesh to protect the integration points. Every step sent a small pulse of discomfort up his forearm, a reminder that he’d boarded an enemy ship with five flesh fingers and come back with three fingers and some alloy.

  Aurora tracked his gait and kept flagging minor muscular strain warnings in the corner of his HUD. He blinked them away.

  Theta-3 slowed as they reached the junction. Beyond it, the corridor opened into the memorial space, a broad circular section of passageway where the inner bulkhead had been turned into something more than metal.

  The Wall.

  From a distance it looked like dark alloy polished to a subtle shine, broken into rectangular panels. Up close, the panels resolved into lines of names. Hundreds of them. Each line crisp and clean, etched into the metal by Aurora-guided tools.

  All of them were post-Advent.

  The oldest names dated back to the early years of the Hegemony fleet leaving Sol, first pushes toward Andromeda and the Opp line. Campaign tags blinked at the panel edges when Kaden focused, stations, convoys, border actions. Below those came more recent panels, clustered around the last decade as the war hardened and the battles grew.

  The newest sections before today were from the offensive that had buckled six weeks ago when the Valiant had nearly died and walked away instead. Kaden recognized the date stamp etched on the plaque beneath that block. He’d seen it on his first tour of the ship, when all of this had been abstract history.

  It did not feel abstract now.

  He forced his attention toward the section that still had blank space. Smooth, unmarked metal next to the last line of names. That was where today’s additions would go.

  Okafor stood near the center, facing the wall. Captain Gaunt stood a little behind and to his right, dress blacks perfectly straight, posture rigid even for him. A small stand held a compact engraving unit with no visible operator. Aurora would handle that part.

  A low chime rippled through the corridor. Conversations, what little there had been, faded.

  Okafor took a step forward.

  “Attention.”

  The word was not shouted, but everyone straightened anyway. Kaden felt his spine react on reflex.

  Okafor let the silence settle for a heartbeat.

  “Six weeks ago,” he said, “the Valiant stood in this same corridor while Aurora cut names into this wall for marines and sailors who didn’t make it back from the Corridor.”

  Kaden’s eyes flicked up to those fresh lines. He didn’t read them. He could feel their presence all the same.

  “We have added a new engagement to that record,” Okafor went on. “Task Force Harrow’s first sortie since that retreat. Today we mark the cost of that success.”

  He nodded to the engraving unit.

  Aurora responded with a soft activation tone. The front of the device glowed, projected a faint targeting grid onto the next blank panel. A pale beam kissed the metal in a single dot, then brightened.

  Letters began to burn into the wall, one stroke at a time.

  Okafor read them as they appeared.

  “Sergeant A. Bell, Theta-5. Confirmed KIA. Boarding action, hostile cruiser.”

  The beam traced each character with mechanical precision. The metal glowed, smoked, and then cooled.

  “Corporal R. Ortiz, Theta-5. Confirmed KIA.”

  Kaden swallowed.

  He didn’t know Bell. Ortiz sounded faintly familiar, a name from muster lists and mess hall noise, but he couldn’t put a face to it. Theta-5 shifted as a group. One of their marines bowed their head. Another stared straight at the new lines, jaw clenched.

  Okafor paused.

  Kaden’s pulse thudded in his ears.

  “Private First Class J. Song,” Okafor said. “Theta-5. Confirmed KIA.”

  The letters burned slow.

  PFC J. SONG.

  The sound of it landed somewhere below Kaden’s ribs and stayed there.

  He remembered a mess table, trays pushed aside to make room for cards. Song’s hand flashing down in that ridiculous power slide during the evaluation highlights. The way he’d laughed in the mess, eyes bright as he’d said, ‘we’ll argue who had it worse when we get back’.

  Kaden watched the final G in SONG cool from angry orange to dull metal.

  Beside him, Navarro’s breath hitched. She did not make a sound, but her shoulders tightened under her jacket.

  On Kaden’s right, Vos’ fingers flexed once, then stilled.

  Tanaka was silent. When Kaden glanced sideways, the heavy’s expression was hard to read. Jaw set. Eyes locked on the wall.

  “You knew him,” one of the marines near Theta-5 asked in a whisper. Kaden couldn’t see who.

  “Academy,” Navarro murmured back. “Same year.”

  ”You’ll get used to the feeling.”

  The engraving unit moved on, carving names from non-shock units, shipboard security, a couple of fighter pilots from Seraphim were mentioned. Gaunt read those, his voice steady, each name paced with the burn of letters.

  Kaden heard them, but they blurred. Every time his gaze shifted, it found its way back to that one line.

  Private First Class J. Song.

  He flexed his left hand. The mesh at the base of the cyber fingers tugged against healing skin. The metal digits moved smoothly, only a slightly lag and tremor.

  It felt wrong that they worked so well when Song’s hands were never going to move again.

  The last name sank into the wall and cooled. The engraver powered down with a soft descending tone.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Silence stretched.

  Gaunt stepped forward.

  He looked tired in a way that went deeper than the usual command fatigue. There were new lines around his eyes and a fresh bruise along his temple that a med tech had done a decent job hiding but not erasing. His voice, when he spoke, carried easily to the edges of the circle.

  “We went back to the corridor we lost,” he said. “We took a bite out of the line that nearly killed this ship six weeks ago. Our task force is intact. The Valiant is still here. You are still here.”

  He glanced over the assembled marines, over Theta-3, Theta-5, the line troops, the techs who had come to stand for the ones they had failed to bring back.

  “Those names,” he said, nodding to the fresh cuts, “are why.”

  Kaden felt the weight of that in a way he hadn’t back in the academy, where walls like this had been something you saluted and walked past on your way to class.

  “They did not die because they were careless,” Gaunt said. “They did not die because they were weak. They died because we asked them to go somewhere dangerous and do something hard so that the rest of us could get out again.”

  He let that hang, then added, “And they did it.”

  No one moved. No one shifted. Even the usual small fidgeting stopped.

  “This wall exists for two reasons,” Gaunt said. “First, so no one forgets who paid the price. Second, so none of you start believing there’s a version of this job where no one does.”

  Navarro’s hands curled into fists behind her back. Kaden could see her knuckles whiten just past the edge of her sleeve.

  “We did not lose Harrow’s task force today,” Gaunt said. “We did not lose the Valiant. We took their ship. We killed their guns. We got out.”

  He looked at the portion of the wall that had just been written.

  “It cost us,” he said. “If we do our jobs, it will keep costing us. That’s the reality you signed onto when Aurora put a chip in your neck and the Hegemony put you in that armor.”

  He wasn’t preaching. He wasn’t dressing it up. He sounded like a man reading out loud from a ledger he did not get to close.

  “This was the first sortie of Task Force Harrow. Not the last. Opp still holds that corridor. They still have ships. They still have marines. They’re not done trying to kill us. We are not done making sure they fail.”

  He let his gaze sweep across the crowd again.

  “You are shock marines,” he said. “You are line troops. You are sailors. You are techs. You are the reason this ship leaves port and comes back. These names are the cost of that. Honor them by learning, by improving, by doing your job so well that we don’t add names lightly.”

  His eyes settled briefly on Theta-5.

  “Sergeant Moreau,” he said.

  The Theta-5 squad leader stepped forward. Moreau looked thinner than before the sortie, stripped down. There was a fresh band at her throat where a bruised line peeked above her collar. Her eyes never left Song’s name.

  Gaunt inclined his head.

  “You brought most of your people back,” he said. “You engaged a Reaver and survived long enough for Theta-4 to reach you. It wasn’t enough for everyone. But it was enough for some.”

  Moreau nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

  Her voice was intact. Everything else sounded like it was running on reserves.

  “If you have anything you want to say for your dead,” Gaunt said, “say it to them. Or say it to your squads. Or don’t say anything at all. There’s no right way, as long as you remember.”

  He stepped back half a pace.

  “Dismissed to your chains of command,” he said. “Aurora will log attendance. Take the time you need. Then get back to work. Task Force Harrow isn’t done.”

  He gave the wall one last look, then turned and walked away, Okafor falling into step beside him. A few officers followed. The rest stayed.

  The informal part started then. Quiet conversations, people peeling off in small clusters to stand closer to specific names.

  Theta-5 moved as a single organism toward the section with their dead. Moreau raised a hand and laid her fingers lightly against the fresh letters. The marine on the ventilator was not here. The other two who could stand were, supported between bandaged comrades.

  Theta-3 remained where they were for a moment.

  Jax broke formation first.

  “Let’s go,” she said quietly.

  They approached the wall together, drifting slightly toward the section where Song’s name sat between Bell and Ortiz.

  Up close, the new engraving still smelled faintly of scorched metal.

  Navarro stopped in front of SONG. Her shoulders were stiff, chin lifted just enough to keep her face from crumpling.

  “He’d be pissed he didn’t get to see his own name,” she murmured. “Bet he’d make some stupid joke about font size.”

  Kaden could hear exactly how Song would have said it.

  Vos let out a breath that might have been a laugh if there had been anything funny here.

  “He’d definitely complain it wasn’t centered,” Vos said quietly. “Or that his initial looked crooked.”

  “Looks straight to me,” Tanaka said.

  He had eased up to Kaden’s left, crutches tucked under his arms, weight resting mostly on his good leg. His gaze stayed on the letters.

  “Good kid,” he said.

  Same words he had used in the mess, thrown out casually after Song had slid in and stolen some of Vos’ fries.

  They sounded different here.

  Kaden lifted his left hand before he could talk himself out of it. The mesh tugged as he extended the metal fingers. He laid the tips of his cyber ring and pinky lightly against the bottom edge of the engraved line.

  The metal was cool.

  For a second he half expected Aurora to ping something, a mission summary, KIA report, some sterile tag. It did not. It let the moment be just what it was: one live marine touching a dead one’s name.

  He thought about the last time he had seen Song conscious. In the mess. Arguing over who had it worse, Theta sims or whatever hell Moreau was putting him through.

  Kaden’s jaw tightened.

  He took his hand back and let it hang at his side.

  “You’re blaming yourself,” Jax said quietly, just loud enough for Theta-3 to hear.

  Kaden didn’t answer.

  “You weren’t in his squad,” she went on. “You weren’t on his deck. You had your own marines to keep alive. That’s not a comfort. It’s just the truth.”

  Navarro’s eyes did not leave the name.

  “We still left him,” she said, voice very flat. “We walked onto that cruiser and came off it, and he didn’t.”

  “We left a lot of people,” Jax said. There was no heat in it, no rebuke. “And brought a lot more back because of what you did. It doesn’t balance. It never will. But you don’t get to pretend you could have been in two places at once.”

  Vos shifted his weight.

  “Song knew the job,” he said. “He didn’t sign for logistics and get lost on the way to the hangar.”

  “That’s not—” Navarro started, then stopped herself. She scrubbed a hand over her face.

  “He wouldn’t want you to turn into a ghost over this,” Vos said, softer. “He’d want someone to beat his score on the range so he had something to complain about when we saw him again.”

  Kaden wasn’t sure he believed in seeing anyone again. Not in any way that mattered.

  But he understood the shape of the thought.

  Around them, marines touched names, spoke quietly, or just stood. A couple of techs from engineering came in and went straight to a small knot of ship names higher up on the wall. A fighter pilot in a sling stood alone in front of a line from Seraphim’s crew list for a long time.

  Jax tilted her head, studying the section from the last offensive. There was a whole slab of panel with names under a simple etched heading: COMBAT UNITS – PRIOR ACTION.

  Kaden caught glimpses: surnames with ranks. Some of them already familiar from the way Jax went quiet when certain corridors came up in conversation.

  “You keep track of where yours are,” she said. It was not to anyone in particular. Maybe herself. “You don’t forget them. But you don’t stop for every name, or you never move again.”

  She stepped back.

  “Take the time you need,” she told Theta-3. “Then we go back to doing the work that keeps this list from getting longer faster than it has to.”

  Navarro stayed a few more breaths, then backed off too, folding her arms tight across her chest.

  “I’m going to the range later,” she said. “After the med techs stop hovering. He always said my grouping could be tighter.”

  “That’s the lie he told himself when you beat him,” Vos said.

  “Exactly,” she said. “So I’ll go make sure that keeps being true.”

  Tanaka glanced at Kaden.

  “You?” he asked.

  Kaden looked at the wall. At the blank spaces beneath where more names would eventually go.

  “I’ve got rehab,” he said. “Med said they want me playing with squeeze balls and picking up small objects like a toddler.”

  “Important work,” Vos said. “I expect you to be able to shuffle cards again before our next game.”

  “Yeah,” Kaden said. His throat felt tight. “Wouldn’t want to give you an advantage.”

  Then he stepped back.

  As they drifted away from the wall, the noise in the corridor stayed low. People came and went. Some marines just passed through, touching a panel in silence and continuing on to whatever duty rotation they had. Aurora logged everyone. Kaden could feel the quiet pings at the edge of his HUD, attendance recorded and filed.

  Gaunt had been right. This wasn’t the end of anything.

  It was a marker.

  The first sortie of Task Force Harrow had gone on the books as a win. Opp torpedoes silenced, hostile cruiser disabled, task force intact. Someone in a clean office back in the inner systems would feed those numbers into a report and stamp it SUCCESSFUL / ACCEPTABLE LOSSES.

  For the Valiant, it meant the Wall was a little fuller.

  For Kaden, it meant Song’s voice was gone from the mess and the barracks and the shared little pockets of quiet that had made the academy feel survivable.

  He flexed his left hand as they walked away. Metal and flesh moved together, the new AP number in his HUD sitting there like a promise and a debt.

  He had more to work with now. More to spend.

  So did Navarro. So did Vos. Tanaka had been told by three different med techs that he would be back in armor eventually whether they liked it or not. Jax had come out of this with another layer of names behind her eyes.

  Task Force Harrow wasn’t done. The corridor wasn’t taken back. Opp ships were still out there, waiting on the other side of whatever FTL line the Valiant would dive into next.

  The Wall would be waiting when they came back.

  If they came back.

  Kaden looked once over his shoulder as Theta-3 turned the corner. From this angle he couldn’t read the names, only see the gleam of fresh engraving among older scars.